SYRA LARKIN

Syra studied Art at Hammersmith College of Art London and qualified with merit in 1972. In 1977 Syra together with her husband Irish Luthier Chris Larkin (RIP 2018) moved to a small windswept peninsula known as The Maharees on the West Coast of Ireland. Where they lived, worked, encouraged, and inspired one another daily. Syra lived and worked for many years in a caravan and today works from a purpose-built studio known as Shoreline Studio, where despite the remote location she has managed to develop her career as a professional artist. Taking part in many of the major open submission exhibitions in Ireland and London. She has had work in both solo and group exhibitions in Ireland, America, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, and England. Syra’s work was selected for the Inaugural Kerry Visual Artist Showcase in 2015. Sponsored by Kerry County Council in support of The Arts, Syra Larkin’s art is found in both private and corporate collections. Syra’s work is mainly figurative in style and she would use these words to describe her work: figurative, emotional, poetic, symbolic, mercurial, narrative, eclectic. syralarkinart.com

BRESLIN BELL

Breslin Bell (b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary visual artist working primarily in print, sculpture, text, and installation informed by feminisms and feminized rights. Additionally, Bell is an educator and museum professional. In 2021 Bell co-curated the thirty-artist group exhibition Feminized with colleague Mariana Ramos Ortiz at Gelman Gallery, RISD Museum. She has exhibited widely since 2016 in a number of group exhibitions in London, Edinburgh, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and Japan. Highlights include, Tomorrow 2021 at White Cube London and Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2021 at Woolwich Works. Her work has been featured in Artsthread’s Global Design Graduate Show 2021 in collaboration with GUCCI “Judges Favorites,” Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair “Panelist Picks,” and RISD News, among other publications. Breslin Bell is a recipient of the American Cities Internship Program Award with Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. In Spring 2022 Bell will attend the MASS MoCA Artist-in-Residence program. Bell earned her MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her BA in Art History and Studio Art from Wellesley College. breslinsheastudio.com

EMMALENE BLAKE

I am a visual artist residing in Dublin, working predominantly on large scale murals. Since graduating from Dublin Institute of Technology with an BA in Fine Art in 2012, I have been honing my craft as a street artist. I have painted live at many events, as well as painting large scale murals throughout Ireland and abroad. My time is spread between painting outdoor large-scale pieces, studio work and teaching in Youthreach (an education centre for early school leavers). My work is frequently socio-political and very much influenced by the world around me and by issues I feel strongly about. As a result, recurring themes in my work include feminism, human rights, environmental issues, inequality, as well as pop culture and humour. I strongly believe in the power of public art as a means of reflecting the world and of engaging the wider public in conversations about culture and society. emmaleneart.com

SHEELYN BROWNE

Sheelyn Browne is the 14th great-granddaughter of Grace O’Malley and one of the Westport House Brownes. Sheelyn studied Visual Communications at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, and graduated with a Bachelor of Design in 1987. It was there that she became interested in relief cut printmaking, primarily in the form of Woodcut, which is one of the earliest techniques of illustration invented. The appeal for her was starting out in three-dimensional mode with knife and block of wood in hand, but with the end result being that of two dimensional – a print. Sheelyn’s earliest influences were the works of the 18th Century Japanese woodcut artists. However, the German Expressionists were always and continue to be her biggest influences – artists like Heckel, Kirchner, and Nolde being favorites. Sheelyn has had solo exhibitions of her work in both The Bank of Ireland Art’s Centre, Dublin, and in Blackburn House, Liverpool. Her works include some famous Irish writer portraits, figurative and wildlife themed images.

EAMON COLMAN

Eamon Colman was born in Dublin in 1957. He is an elected member of Aosdána since 2007 in recognition of his major contribution to Irish culture. His professional career spans from 1979, having created nearly forty solo exhibitions presented nationally and internationally. In 1997, he was invited to host a major mid-term retrospective exhibition of his work entitled ‘Post Cards Home’ at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin at the age of 39 years. This was accompanied by a monograph on his work by writer and art critic Brian Mc Avera entitled ‘Dreams from The Lion’s Head, The Work of Eamon Colman’ published by Four Fields Press. A 25-year retrospective of his work is featured in a substantial publication by Gandon Editions, Kinsale: ‘Profile 25 – Eamon Colman’ (2006). In 1989, he won the First Prize Painting Award in EVA International; in 2001 First Prize Painting Award in Eigse, Carlow Arts Festival; in 2002, he was the first Irish artist to be awarded Full Fellowship Award from the Vermont Studio Centre, USA; in 2005, he won a CCAT Interreg Major Award for touring an exhibition in Wales, UK and in 2018 he was awarded a Culture Ireland GB18 Award. His work has been included in exhibitions representing contemporary Irish art in Brussels, Denmark, France, Spain, UK, Hong Kong, Canada and USA. His work can be viewed in his representative gallery: Solomon Fine Art, Balfe Street, Dublin 2. eamoncolman.com

DIARMUID DELARGY

Diarmuid Delargy studied at the Slade School of Art in London. He was elected to Aosdána in 1999 and to the Royal Society of Painter/Printmakers Bankside London, in 2005. He is represented in Ireland by the Taylor Galleries, Dublin and the Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast. Painter, sculptor and print-maker, Delargy has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally. He has received numerous bursaries and spent time working with the Artists' Union Workshop in Berlin. He has received many awards for his work including the Gold Medal at the European Large Format Print Exhibition, Dublin (1991). He completed a suite of 24 prints based on a text by Samuel Beckett (with the author’s written approval), which exhibited widely including MOMA San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York. @diarmuiddelargyart

PAUL MACCORMAIC

Paul was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1961and continues to live and work there. He grew up in Finglas, a working class suburb on the city's north side. A childhood spent climbing trees, damming ditches and observing nature fostered a love of drawing. Just 200 meters from his home, began the fields and hedgerows of North County Dublin. With no interest in football, unlike the other boys on his estate, Finglas fed his curiosity for all things scientific, including physics, zoology and anthropology. As a mature student MacCormaic graduated from UCD, having read History of Art and then went on to Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) graduating in 2006. Since graduating, he has been a full-time artist and part-time teacher of painting classes in NCAD and Art History in local schools.

DANIEL FAIELLA

Daniel Faiella was born and raised in New Hampshire. His interest in landscape painting has its roots in the rocky, forested, and mountainous terrain of the Northeastern United States in which, as a child, he first became aware of his surroundings through exploration on long walks and hikes. Another significant influence on his relationship with the landscape came from his childhood interest in Irish mythology. In his teens, he became interested in the way in which Irish mythology weaves the supernatural world of the gods into the natural landscape of everyday experience. In the view of the world presented by these stories, there is no strict division between supernatural and natural, magical and ordinary, or animate and inanimate. Beginning his studies in art at the age of 16, with painter Paul Ingbretson, Daniel completed a 6 year atelier curriculum in classical drawing and painting before pursuing his BFA in drawing and painting at the University of New Hampshire. During this time he also worked as studio assistant to artist and illustrator Tomie DePaola. He lives and paints in the seacoast area of New Hampshire, within a short drive of the mountains, the ocean, and the woods he first explored as a child. danielfaiella.com

DERVAL FREEMAN

I grew up in Nenagh, County Tipperary and around the time of my leaving cert my family and I relocated to the countryside in County Clare just outside Limerick City. After graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design 1996, I painted on and off over a number of years wherever my personal life would allow. I took up painting full time over 7 years ago at my home studio in Co. Wicklow where I fell in love with and have settled the past number of years. I have exhibited in several solo and group shows throughout the years and the highlight of exhibitions so far are being an invited artist to various group shows within the past 2 to 3 years with Hamilton Gallery, Sligo. Some include Eva Gore Booth, Among School Children, Meditations in Time of Civil War and currently St. Brigids Day exhibition 2022. Another highlight is being one of the winners of the Enlighten artist group initiative 2021 and runner up on multiple other submissions to the same project with Hambly and Hambly Gallery, Enniskillen. I am also very happy to say that I have been awarded an artist residency in March 2022 by Noelle Campbell Sharp at her artist retreat in Cill Rialaig, Co. Kerry. Later towards the end of this year I look forward to a solo at Easter Snow Gallery, Seamus Ennis Gallery in Naul, Co. Dublin. dervalfreeman.com

AYA GHANAMEH

Aya Ghanameh is a Palestinian illustrator, writer, and designer from Amman, Jordan currently based in New York City. Her work moves away from state-centric ways of thinking to center the voices of ordinary people in historical and political narratives. Her debut children's picture book, THESE OLIVE TREES (Viking Books, 2023), is inspired by the experiences of her family who cultivated her love of the earth throughout her upbringing in exile. Aya graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration and a minor in Literary Arts & Studies. Previously a Children's Books & Gifts Design Fellow at Chronicle Books, she is now a Designer at Penguin Workshop at Penguin Random House. ayaghanameh.com

OLIVIA HENCHY

Olivia Henchy is a visual artist based in County Clare. Her work is at the intersection between landscape and abstraction. She takes inspiration from the nature around her and her curiosity lies in expressing a sensory experience of the landscape through the exploration of shape, line and colour.

Having graduated from Limerick School of Art & Design with a BA honours degree in graphic design and a postgraduate diploma in art and design education, her early career and training comes through in her work today as a painter. After teaching for several years and taking time out to raise her family she has returned to her own art practice. Olivia is inspired by the rugged landscapes of West Clare, where she divides her time throughout the year.

Through coastal walks and hikes in the Burren she is energised by the visual interplay of the fragility and yet resilience of the landscape and this energy makes it’s way back to her studio where the physicality of the art process aims to mirror nature itself.  Burying, unearthing, building up, scraping back with the intent to somehow echo the constant evolution of the landscape.

Olivia’s work is regularly selected for exhibitions throughout Ireland. She is represented by Russell Gallery Co. Clare and has sold throughout Ireland and the US.

oliviahenchy.com

JB VALLELY

J.B. Vallely was born in 1941 in Armagh. He was raised to appreciate Irish culture, particularly sport and music, which would greatly influence his artistic subjects. He studied at the Belfast College of Art, under Tom Carr, then attended Edinburgh Art College during the 1960s. Eight of his early works were purchased for the Irish display at the 1963 World Fair in New York. Vallely’s subject matter typically relates to rural Irish culture, including its traditions, music, sport, mythology, and history, with a strong focus on Irish people themselves. He has produced a vast number of pieces over his career, exhibiting regularly, and a large retrospective was held of his work in Armagh in 2000. His paintings are included in public collections, such as the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Ulster Museum, and the Ulster Television Collection, along with numerous private collections also. His solo exhibitions include The Eakin Gallery, Emer Gallery, Cavehill Gallery and Sol Art Gallery.

PAUL KELLY

Born in Dublin, Paul Kelly started drawing and painting at an early age. His first exhibition was in his local town of Rush in north county Dublin when he was 14 years old. That summer he was asked to paint cartoon characters on rides at the local fun fair. His first commission. He would later go on and work in the animation industry working on over 10 feature length films in 12 years, at the same time gaining a reputation as a 'fine art' painter in Ireland. He started submitting work to the annual 'Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin' (RHA) annual summer exhibitions and in 1991 was awarded the 'James Kennedy Memorial Award' for portraiture. Nine years later he won 'Artist of the year' from the 'Ireland fund of Great Britain' a prestigious honour in the UK/Ireland fine arts world. At the same time he was enjoying commercial success with sell out exhibitions at 'The Gorry Gallery' in Dublin. In 2000 his painting 'The Liffey Rowers' (Brian P. Burns collection) was exhibited in the Irish Cultural Exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. Paul was also involved in supporting the "Ireland American Fund" by donating art works. In 2002 he made the first of several visits to Lambay island, building up a diverse portfolio of works which were exhibited in 2004 to great critical acclaim. In addition to solo exhibitions he has shown at a variety of select group shows around the country, maintaining his reputation as one of the most talented landscape and figurative artists working in Ireland in recent times. His work remains highly sought after by collector's and he is represented in numerous public and private collections both here in Ireland and abroad. Self taught, Paul paints in a conventional pre-impressionist style in both oils and watercolours. Known for his paintings of north county Dublin with its busy fields, market gardens and small harbours he is always traveling in search of new inspiration with painting trips to Morocco, Prague, Budapest, Spain, France and Italy. 'Paul Kelly in Brittany' 2010 seen his undertakings from a long expedition to this region in France which included visits to Concarneau, Pont-Aven, Benodet, Quimperle and Raz. The annual pardons with their native costumes and medieval backdrops were his subjects for this exhibition. In December 2012 Paul exhibited 'Carnival of Venice' with its sumptuous costumes, wigs and masks against the magnificent back ground of Venice. In recent years his work has started to appear in important art auctions in Dublin (Adam's, Whyte's and deVere's ) and in London (Sotheby's).

BARRY KERR

Barry Kerr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer & painter. Steeped in the traditions of this island, Barry Kerr's creative work – both as a painter and as a musician – expresses the very heart of Irish life. Originating from the southern shores of Lough Neagh in Co.

LOUISE NEILAND

Louise Neiland is a world-builder. Each new painting adds breadth to a painterly globe that has been expanding now for three decades. Outpost is a body of work that document the period of time during which they were made – in this sense, they possess the intimacy of a diary. The landscapes depicted, however, are not entirely recognizable from the painter’s everyday life. Certain landmarks are rooted in reality, but these paintings seek to map territories hitherto unmapped. Outpost is a record of travels across the painter’s innermost landscapes. The topography of this region, the peculiarities of its architecture, creaturely presences, celestial phenomena, create loops within this painted journey. We find ourselves in a place of echoes and mysterious harbingers; the unknown revealing itself gradually. louiseneiland.com

ELSIE NOLAN

Elsie Nolan is an Irish artist, painting land and seascapes in various media. She studied at Limerick School of Art and Design Elsie’s art reflects the human experience, revealing the elemental, ethereal and nostalgic; not only the yellow harvested field but the heat coming off it and more, the ghost of a long gone summer day. Painting what she sees but also what she imbibes, Elsie believes her art is a response to what affects her spirit; a piece of music, a person crying, a kindness, an injustice. The process becomes meditative and she trusts some deeper sense to release itself into the work, unlocking the truth and seeing more. elsienolan.com

JOHN O'DONNELL

I was born in Dublin in 1963. My passion for art grew from a young age and where I would eventually go on to study Art. I have always held a strong connection to Ireland, having roots in Monaree - a small part of the Dingle Peninsula. Throughout my life, I have lived in both Ireland and South Africa and travelled globally for my work. A few of my significant exhibitions include Sanctuary (New York 2000), Ireland Revisited (Ireland and Johannesburg 1997), Africa (New York 2001), Going to Church (Cape Town 1995), Woven (LA and Paris 2023) I spent 30 years living in South Africa. During the early years in South Africa, I owned a small art gallery in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, Kwazulu Natal; travelling home to Ireland yearly. In the 1990s, I began to sponsor art tuition fees in response to the difficulties young people faced in the post-Apartheid South Africa. While it was all well and good to establish broader inclusivity and access to education in the ‘New South Africa’, there weren’t enough mechanisms in place yet for students to actually fund their studies during that time. I sponsored this for as long as was there, and this was well documented during that time.

DARYNE ROCKETT

My paintings are a means of healing my brain, my relationships, and my heart. The meditative process of repeating patterns becomes the foundation of each piece, providing depth while reflecting the multiplicity of my connections to and understanding of each subject. Each work is an expression of gratitude for community, belonging, and vitality. Often my pieces reflect the dynamics of vulnerability, protection, power, and self-determination. Prior to sustaining a brain injury in 2014, I was regularly involved in the performing arts as a harper, songwriter, and singer with an undergraduate degree in theater, but with very little experience in visual art. In the first eighteen months after the accident, it was too difficult to make music or be in the settings where I used to play. During the period away from my work as a clinical social worker with combat veterans, brain rest prevented me from engaging in most of my previous, meaningful activities. Longing for a way to pass the time that would help facilitate rather than prevent my healing, I began “doodling” small mandalas on 3-½” square pieces of paper in ink, then coloring the tiny works with magic markers. The symmetry and repetition of patterns was a balm to my foggy brain. As my healing progressed I found enjoyment in larger formats and other mediums. Large canvases allowed me to use my entire body to move the brush and watch what would emerge. My own recovery journey provided insight into the many ways that we are all engaged in healing from suffering, and my work is often representative of the duality of injury and recovery. While I have been able to fully return to my work as a clinician, my new life as a professional artist has become a parallel source of expression, vitality, and meaning. I often have the great privilege of initiating clients into the process of making art to connect with spirit, self, and community. It is my hope that viewers can connect with their own sense of balance and relationship to others through these paintings and/or find the inspiration to create something meaningful of their own. @doodlerexartist

ROBIN SAVAGE

My work is primarily informed by postcolonial/decolonial concerns and the intersections between the resistance of formerly colonized peoples and cultures. These intersections also link struggles in gender and class resistance, making my work a creolization of many “lines” of cultural representation. This work for the ANCESTORS exhibit is an attempt to trace some of those lines and their connections to my Irish-American experience in the US. Much of the past three years of my creative practice have been spent working on a re-connection with that experience and with both sides of my cultural heritage, Irish and American. Hence, the theme of the show for my own work and my bi-cultural heritage is one of a kind of double-helix: the influences of my time in the US Southwest and South, and the influences from my Irish histories. The paintings I submitted, therefore, have two distinct yet related “branches”. On the one hand, my Irish paintings explore a connection to the modified cubism of Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, and Mary Swanzy, Norah McGuinness and Nano Reid, and through them to Albert Gleizes and the Section D’Or school of early twentieth century Gallic modernism. This strain informs my own recent style of Irish Jazz, a modified cubism (like theirs) that is used for representational purposes. Specifically, these are the paper collage and more abstract pieces that you see in the exhibit, and they are composed differently than the others using cut out paper shapes rather than drawing as the first stage of composition. Like Gleizes’ theories, these pieces radiate out from the center of the canvas, and both converge and diverge from this center point, creating a dynamic movement created in an intuitive moment of composition. Then, I paint these compositions, again using intuitive “leaps” as I alter and re-combine these shapes and forms. Those moments of intuitive composition and re-composition emphasize what I call “other ways of knowing,” and are linked to traditional Irish culture and to the tradition of interlace, spiraling, and ambiguous space so common in Irish design. On the other “strain,” I am influenced by a tradition in American painting of figurative, muralist expressionism that borrows and riffs off of WPA artistic work and German Expressionism with artists like Philip Guston, Max Beckmann, and other WPA muralists combining with Charles White, Hale Woodruff, Elizabeth Catlett, the Mexican Muralists, and the Chicanx murals of my childhood in the desert Southwest. These pieces in the show, then, are representative of a constant shifting and hybridizing of these influences with my own figurative tendencies, and therefore become an example of such intersections, such solidarities, and such possibilities. All of this combines in an effort to re-tell histories of struggle, oppression, and resistance, and in doing so, remake American history painting. If such histories haunt us all still, then these paintings are also a re-confronting of the ghosts of our past, those that still bind us to our present and can either liberate or further imprison our future.

ELIZA ULMER

Eliza is an multidisciplinary artist with focuses in painting and ceramics. Her work encapsulates many themes ranging from landscapes, interiors, multidimensional painted objects and functional pottery. As a landscape painter, her work is often first inspired by the natural world. Eliza uses the seasons combined with a sense of nostalgia for place and time. Her work varies widely in tone, from the self-referential and silly to somber and thoughtful. This grouping of work celebrates Autumn and the coming of darker, colder weather as the northern hemisphere leaves summer behind. Eliza Ulmer is a long time lover of art, music and literature. She studied Plein Air painting in Dingle Ireland in 2015 and received her BFA through SUNY Plattsburgh in 2017. She received her MFA through Maine College of Art & Design in 2021. She lives in her hometown of Spencertown, NY with Partner Noah, and their cat and dog. She currently works at Art Omi, a sculpture and architecture park in Ghent, NY.